Didnt see that C section coming. I had such a great start to the day and was in the best of moods…this was going to be a great day.

Then I found myself looking into the eyes of my anesthisiologist, in an operating room about to have major surgery.

Recovery was painful, but with enough pain medication, I found out that you look at life a whole lot differantly.

I couldnt wait to hold baby Cole in my arms, to see his face, to meet the one who had grown with me for the last 9 months…..

He was so precious that I was almost sorry for all of the nasty ” stop kicking me” comments.

I got to play the “Mommy” role for 2 whole days and it felt great…..this is what I had wanted, and I knew the parents where so happy and couldnt wait to take him home.

I have to give my husband all the kudos in the world for being so great, so understanding. He has taken care of not only me and was by myside the whole way through but to add house and home on top of it…is just amazing to me.

Husband.

Familys of surrogates, take care of the husband too. They work just as hard and are probably looked over for all of thier support, errand running, emotional support and general keeping everything together all the while watching thier wives go through pain and agony.

I can never repay my husband for what he has gone through with me but I will have the rest of my life to keep trying.

So here we were late Wednesday morning, Michelle settled in at the hospital, ready for a pretty long siege/labor process lasting well into the night.

I was planning on getting at least 7 or 8 new entries onto www.guestwomb.com describing the whole process. In fact I was doing a little preemptive internet research trying to find sound byte files of famous actress screams in film/tv. You know….so I could provide some frame of reference for the noises I was expecting to last until Midnight or so.

Michelle’s doctor comes into the room and arranges for a quick ultrasound check, and I took a few moments to stretch my legs in the hallway.

When I strolled back in five minutes later, everything had changed. A flurry of five nurses were working all over Michelle. Doctors were running in and out of the room.

“Have they told you,” cried Michelle, eyes wide in shock?

“Told me what?, I asked.”

“C-Section!”

The ultrasound showed the kid’s head was jammed right up against the umbilical cord. During a long labor he would squeeze it down even further. It really WAS go time, technically an emergency C-Section although neither Michelle nor the kid were in danger at that moment.

But I guess they only have one speed when the order comes down from the doctor.

One of the nurses threw me a package of scrubs and said, “Dad, put ‘em on….we’re going over to the operating room right now.”

Now there were two big problems with that nurse’s statement:

I was not the Dad. I have made that painfully obvious through the previous 94 entries of my blog.

Me in operating room, around skin shredding scalpels and blood would create an entirely different medical issue. Operating table for two, please?

However when it was known that Michelle would have a general anesthetic, that ruled me out of being another casualty of squeamishness in the operating room. One crisis averted.

But then another loomed: the intended parents hadn’t even arrived at the hospital! Michelle had called them at 5 a.m. when we were on the way to the hospital, but told them it was going to be hours and hours of waiting. No rush. Take your time. Driving in from north Jersey, they wouldn’t arrive until noon or so.

So as Michelle was being quickly prepped and rushed to the operating room, I quickly dialed them on my cell phone to give them the news. Before I had a chance to say hello, one of the mom’s said: “We’re here. In the elevator”.

“Get in here fast. She’s having a C-section right now!”

……………… I’ll save the next hour of details for another time…………………………..

As they say, best laid plans and all that. But the outcome was the same. And just what we hoped for.

Cole Lewis Martino came into the world at 12:03, about 20 minutes after that seemingly routine ultrasound check. Born with 10 little fingers, same amount of toes. Absolutely perfect condition.

Michelle’s doing great, after a pretty bad 90 minutes following the surgery because the post procedure pain management was woefully slow.

As for me, I suffered a really annoying paper cut Thursday morning while reading the newspaper in M’s hospital room but I’m told I’ll make a full recovery.

And I’m kind of disappointed I didn’t get to use some of those movie sound bytes on the blog to provide a vivid description of the big event…..

Or maybe the threat of hooking a speaker up to Michelle’s belly and blasting Wayne Newton music 24/7…….

Whatever it was….it’s worked.

Baby is on the way. No doubt about it. Michelle is at St. Mary’s Medical Center at Langhorne, PA, all hooked to tubes, wires, monitors. Rested and ready. Looking forward to her first of many epidurals.